While still on the subject of the 1942 film "The Pride of the Yankees," the theme song, if you will, was the Irving Berlin composition "Always" from 1925.
The song is heard in a nightclub scene when it's played by Ray Noble and his Orchestra and sung by Bettye Avery. This particular scene also features a dance number by the team of Veloz and Yolanda which frankly goes on a bit too long. It needed more Ray Noble!
Back in the day when you had to watch movies on TV and were at the mercy of the station, this scene was usually cut to allow room for more commercials!
But "Always" pops up as background music quite a bit in the film. Gary Cooper even whistles the tune!
Movies often featured older songs and sometimes the songs gained new popularity, sometimes becoming more popular this time around then ever before, with the prime example being "As Time Goes By" when featured in "Casablanca" in 1942.
Despite the snappy new sheet music seen at the top of the page, it seems that "Always" didn't really get much traction from being featured in "The Pride of the Yankees."
But...
Things took in an interesting turn in 1994 when Deanna Durbin sang "Always" in her movie "Christmas Holiday."
That exposure got the song got a bunch of new recording, including Deanna's own lovely version on Decca Records:
Very nice!
Now, the lack of recordings in 1942 vs. the several in 1944 can be partially explained by the recording ban, but apparently this instrumental version by Gordon Jenkins was recorded in 1942, but not released by Capitol Records until 1944:
Not sure what the story or or why Capitol didn't promote it in 1942 with the tie-in to "The Pride of the Yankees."
Another instrumental version was recorded by Paul Lavalle for the small Muiscraft label in 1944:
I like that a lot!
That's from an album of waltzes, so it might be just a coincidence that Paul Lavalle recorded the song in the same year as Deanna Durbin.
Now I'm going around in circles again!
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